Warm weather was at hand. And Dickie Deer Mouse gave up frolicking with
his friends for a time, because he needed to find a pleasant place in
which to spend the summer.
He had his eye on a nest high in the top of a tall elm, where a certain
black rascal known as old Mr. Crow had lived for a long while.
Now, Dickie had heard a bit of gossip, to the effect that the old
gentleman had moved to another tree nearer to Farmer Green's cornfield.
So Dickie wanted to lose no time. He was afraid that if he waited, some
brisk member of the Squirrel family would settle himself in Mr. Crow's
old home.
Without telling anybody what was in his head, Dickie Deer Mouse set
forth one pleasant, warm night in the direction of the great elm, where
he hoped to pass a number of delightful months.
It was some distance to the tall tree. But the night was fine, and
Dickie enjoyed his journey, though once he stopped and shivered when he
heard the wailing whistle of a screech owl.
"That's Simon Screecher!" Dickie Deer Mouse exclaimed under his breath.
"I know his voice. And I hope he won't come this way!"
Dickie halted for a few minutes, near an old oak with spreading roots,
under which he intended to hide in case Simon Screecher should suddenly
appear.
But he soon decided that Simon was headed for another part of the woods,
for his quavering cry grew fainter and fainter. So Dickie promptly
forgot his fright and scampered on again faster than before, to make up
the time he had lost.
Though he travelled through the flickering shadows like a brown and
white streak, he did not pant the least bit when he reached old Mr.
Crow's elm. He did not need to pause at the foot of the tree to get his
breath, but scurried up it as if climbing was one of the easiest things
he did.
Mr. Crow's big nest was so far from the ground that many people would
not have cared to visit it except with the help of an elevator. But
Dickie Deer Mouse never stopped to think of such a thing. Of course it
would have done him no good, anyway, to wish for an elevator, for there
was none in all Pleasant Valley. In fact, even Johnnie Green himself had
only heard of--and never seen--one.
It took Dickie Deer Mouse only a few moments to reach the top of the
tall elm, where Mr. Crow's bulky nest, built of sticks and lined with
grass and moss, rested in a crotch formed by three branches.
Dickie had never before been so close to Mr. Crow's old home. And now he
stood still and looked at it with great interest. It was ever so much
bigger than he had supposed, and exactly the sort of dwelling--cool and
airy--that he had hoped to find for his summer home.
"I don't see what sort of house the old gentleman can want that would be
better than this," Dickie Deer Mouse remarked to himself. "But it is a
long way from the cornfield, to be sure." And then he climbed quickly
up the side of the nest and whisked down inside it.
The next moment a great commotion frightened him nearly out of his wits.
A deafening squawking smote Dickie Deer Mouse's big ears. And something
struck him a number of blows that knocked his breath quite out of him.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]